For those that may not know, I was born and bred as part of the Disney Collective. From 1972 till 2001, I ate, drank, walked, smoked, and thought Disney. They paid my salary, the paid my parents’ salaries, everything I had in my life was because of the Disney success story. Many of you that are reading this may not have been born when things at Disney were not so ‘secure’. If you have spare time between Final Fantasy XIII, Red Dead Redemption or the Twilight “Saga”, you may want to find a copy of Storming the Magic Kingdom in your local used bookstore, or Amazon.

In February of 1984, I was lucky enough to sit in the Ballroom of the Americas at Walt Disney World’s Contemporary Resort for the Annual Walt Disney Productions (what the Walt Disney Company was called back then) stock holder’s meeting. There, Ron Miller, son-in-law of company founder Walt Disney, was premiering a film, Splash, for the stock holders. Why was the then CEO (Ron Miller would not see the end of ’84 as the company’s CEO) so worried about stockholder opinion regarding their new movie? Well, after the Black Hole and Tron, two ‘adult’ oriented Disney films, completely BOMBED, the decision was made to create Touchstone Pictures. This decision would be Ron’s greatest legacy with the now Walt Disney Company (WDC). Back in the 80′s and 90′s, WDC was really worried about it’s ‘image’. With Touchstone Pictures, then later the Hollywood Pictures and the aquisition of Miramax, WDC was able to create a layer of protection between itself and its ‘edgier’ productions.

So there are 2 set-up paragraphs for what, Mr. Snackpants? Well, last night, Katie McAwesome and I sat through Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (don’t get me started on the fact that a movie based on a video game, needs a seperate video game tie-in). While seated in the theater, it finally hit me that the huge Disney castle logo was emblazened on the front of a PG-13 film. This was not the first time… all three of the previous Pirates films were PG-13, but it would have been much, much harder to mask such a well-known Disney property (“Pirates of the Caribean” was the last attraction Walt had direct control over). Prince of Persia was an Electronic Arts property, no previous Disney tie-in at all, but now the company has come full circle. When PG films were unsuccessful for the company, they needed a veil of protection to keep shareholders happy and stock prices up. Now that they have successful PG films, the Disney castle logo is emblazened at the front of the film… to keep shareholders happy and stock prices up. The question I have now… when will we have the first R rated film with the Disney logo attached to it… and will anyone really notice?

You are probably sitting at your internet enabled device and wondering, “Who is this ‘Dalton’ you speak of?” In 1989, a film came was released one that would fly under the radar, but would have a very strong impression on people such as Kevin Smith and Joey Snackpants. That film would be Road House!

Roadhouse, as cheesy of a film as it is, epitomizes the plight of the ‘short guy’. Between making the leading lady always lean on a pole or wall to the patented “Hillbilly Claw” attack, this film is pure bottled 100% awesome. For my complete take on the film, listen to the first episode of the infinitely delayed “Snacktime Online” Podcast (you may be lucky enough to find it somewhere). If not, the Kevin Smith commentary on the new Blu-Ray release is just about as good.

I have to say that Roadhouse had way too much influence on my thoughts of women taller than me, martial arts in the bayou, bouncers, blind guitar players, having a ‘decoy car’, sex against the wall, Sam Elliott, the power mullet and The Swayz himself.

Some people may remember that sissy Ghost film, or even more sissy Dirty Dancing, I like to remember him as the man known as Dalton. Next time you’re in Jasper, I’ll buy you a round at the Double Deuce!

Yes I do… and many have said that I truly hate most of what is produced for the mass media. Yes, I loathe Lost but that show became a parody of itself. I hate Heroes. That show just pretended to be good. Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Star Trek (J.J. Hackbrams) were all movies whose writers needed the crutch from pre-existing fandom. All were nothing like the original but had a ‘BIG NAME’ to bank on. It is the epitome of laziness in mass media today. Today on Facebook, I was challenged to come up with anything I actually *LIKED* “in the last few years”. That time period was defined as 3 years. So, now I will dig deep into my mind and come up with that list, and it may just surprise you!

- Stardust (2007) – I went to see this film initially to just keep people from going to a movie alone. I was truly impressed with the film and own it on DVD and HD-DVD. Yes, I said HD-DVD!

- Enchanted (2007) – This film was exactly what it was trying to be. Both cute and a satire on the whole ‘save the Princess’ genre. The cameos by the ladies of previous features kill me.

- Live Free or Die Hard UNRATED (2007) – As much as I loved Die Hard 1 & 2, but loathed 3… the fourth installment of the franchise brought it back. Though this only goes for the awesomeness that is the unrated version.

- Justice League Unlimited (ended in 2006) – I truly love the DC Animated Universe. Keeping continuity for over 10 years on TV is just unheard of. It takes a storyline that began in Batman: The Animated Series, continued through Superman:TAS, Batman Beyond, Static Shock, and Justice League to a final completion with the Lex Luthor, Darkseid and the Anti-Life Equation. Ten times better than Final Crisis attempted to do.

- Three Sheets (2007) – Zane Lamprey created a show that has a camera follow him drink around the world. Oh, and we learn some culture too!

- Kung Fu Panda (2008) – Just plain fun! There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness.

- Justice League: The New Frontier (2008) – As good of an adaptation of the series as one could get in the limited time frame. You can check out the podcast for my detailed opinion.

- Stargate SG-1 (ended in 2006) – What started as just a run of the mill science fiction show began realizing that continuity and serialized stories were much better than the episodic drudge that was on TV at the time.

- Watchmen (2009) and V for Vendetta (2006) – Even though each drifted away from Alan Moore’s storyline, these films captured the spirit of the work.

- Iron Man (2008) – You know what you get when you take a superhero and don’t make him extra angsty or closer to the people. You get a good superhero movie.

- Speed Racer (2008) – Yeah, people didn’t like it. The problem with this film was the reason why I truly enjoyed it, own it on BluRay and still watch it at least once a month. It is a near PERFECT translation of Speed Racer to the big screen. People wanted some Transformers style junk. This was exactly what it should have been.

- Hot Fuzz (2007) – I don’t know why, but I thought this movie rocked! Actually, I think it was for the ending.

- Fanboys (2008) – Even though it had its issues and the story is completely unbelievable, it’s cute. Luckily they didn’t completely butcher this, as we expected they would.

- Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – Ok, yeah, it won an Oscar, but I think it was one of the most original storytelling films of last year.

I probably missed some stuff… but again, I am old and my mind is going.

Saw Transformers 2: Revenge of Even Worse Storytelling talk about BLECH on so many levels. Actually this one was much more in the spirit of the original animated series, it had an extremely poor plot AND they were looking for Energon. Nice to see that Optimus Prime has taken the “Punisher” approach to dealing with the bad guys. Its like watching a bad 90′s comic fanfic with the Transformers. Maybe Michael Bay is hanging with Rob Liefield these days.

On the end… I downloaded Blood Bowl today for the PC. Yeah, I pre-purchased from the crazy French (that should have been the first sign) site that was handling the digital purchases. I installed it, and boy it does look pretty… I played ‘classic’ game play. Classic is a strict following of the Blood Bowl Living Rules 5.0, and I am extremely impressed… for what I could play. I tried playing 4 games and each crashed at different times. As much as I loathe Windoze Vista, my 64-bit machine has never crashed… until today. Ugh, how a product gets to launch like this… I will never know. This sorta reminds me of the Ultima IX fiasco oh so many years ago. I am starting to think I should have just waited for a console version. This game is going to rock for Blood Bowl fans, when it does work.

In other news, while trying to get Blood Bowl to work, I re-watched Speed Racer on Blu-Ray. Damn is that film awesome, but that is for another time.

I know I will hate the new Star Trek film… I know it will anger me what Mr. “Lost” will be ‘re-envisioning’ one of the few things from my childhood that is still un-molested (that would be Star Trek during the time period of the Original Series), but watching this… made me realize… YES, I am one of ‘those’ people.